


Darksight

by Bugsnake



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: F/F, if theres more tags for this i cant be bothered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bugsnake/pseuds/Bugsnake
Summary: Halisanna and Shadowheart share a precious moment of peace in the Underdark. They also share eyes for a hot second.
Relationships: Shadowheart (Baldur's Gate)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Darksight

**Author's Note:**

> lmao i'm tired of looking at this, enjoy.
> 
> fun fact: spent hours trying to figure out how to indent paragraphs in AO3 only to be told people usually don't use it. Went to see if such was the case and it is. I could have SWORN that wasn't the case. I am now in crisis. 
> 
> Also a big thanks to my pals Sam and Saern for peer-review and editing. Love ya.

The Underdark had tried its best to kill them that day; it would have to try harder.

Halisanna had given them all a thorough talking-to about the Underdark - stern, even! How odd, describing their resident drow as ‘stern!’ 

“The Underdark is my home,” she’d said, “So believe me when I say that it is absolutely _lethal_.” If they didn’t take her at her word then - with the sun on their faces and a breeze at their backs - the rest of the party sure as the Hells did now.

They made camp in a shallow-but-secure cave that overlooked the myconid village below and the long-forgotten fortress beyond. The formation of their shelter resembled that of a forking path, in which one of the diverging routes carved into the wall of the cavern, while the other formed a ridge that hugged the wall of the Underdark. The ridge just past the entrance to their little stronghold was wide enough for two people to comfortably walk side by side without risk of falling to a sudden, horrible death.

Shadowheart was sitting on said ridge - a stone’s toss from the entrance to the camp - admiring all that she was able to see. Oh, how even the darkest of nights possible on the surface pale in comparison to the ever-present shadows of the Underdark! Truly, this place makes a day of the night! Oh, but what does day and night mean to this place? What does time itself mean, in a place where neither sun nor moon will ever shed their light? Truly, the only light to be found here is cast by that which can survive it.

She’s drawn out of her reverie by a polite little _ah-hem_ to her left. Shadowheart looks to its source, and there stands none other than Halisanna - their guide through the darkness, among other things. 

Many other things.

“Looks like you’re enjoying the view,” said the drow with birds on her cheek, “may I join you?”

Shadowheart motioned to the ground next to her - if there was anyone's company she’d enjoy right now, it was hers. Shadowheart fondly remembers the stories she told about the Underdark just the night before. 

Among other things, of course.

“A lovely home you have here.” Shadowheart watched her companion take a seat beside her; closer than what would be considered polite, maybe, but certainly not too close for comfort. “A shame about those minotaurs, though. They wouldn’t happen to be common down here, would they?”

“Eh, not really. Depends on where you are, though. We’re nowhere near the Labyrinth, So I wouldn't worry.”

“The what?” Labyrinth? There’s a godsdamned _labyrinth_ full of minotaurs in the Underdark? Is she joking? 

“Don’t worry about it. So long as we’re nowhere near the Darklake, more minotaurs shouldn’t be our primary concern.” Halisanna sounds so flippant for one nearly gored, stomped, and thrown off a bridge into gods-know-where that very day, in that very order.

“I suppose I’ll take your word for it. Not like we’re going to run out of things trying to kill us down here.” Shadowheart isn’t in the mood to press further. Not now.

“I heard your conversation with Astarion earlier.” Halisanna stretched, fluid and relaxed - A far cry from the sharp-eyed hunter she was earlier, stalking through the Underdark like a lion. The quintessential apex predator, ready to kill. “It's… nice to have the company of someone who sees the Underdark for what it really is.”

“Dangerous, harsh, and beautiful?” 

“Yes! Precisely!” this was the first time Shadowheart has ever seen Halisanna so… Open? Enthusiastic? Earnest? It’s…. adorable, endearing even. For all the harsh things the drow had to say about this world of darkness, she still loves it. She loves it far too much for those pretty lips of hers to hide. Oh, how giddy the drow’s traitor smile makes Shadowheart feel!

“It’s a shame, really,” said Halisanna, leaning back against the rock.“That the rest of you can’t see this place as I do. My eyesight is _excellent_ , after all.”

“And again, I’m jealous!” Shadowheart isn’t sure how facetious she's being, “what an affinity for darkness you have! I wonder what it would be like to see through your eyes.”

“Would you like to find out?” Shadowheart raised an eyebrow, while Halisanna looked far too mirthful for one so sober, eyes bright and mouth smiling. Where was that straight-faced woman who responded to everything with _hmms_ and _huhs_ that Shadowheart has gotten so used to? “I want to try something. Lets make these tadpoles work for us, yeah? 

She felt Halisanna at the edge of her mind - she flinched at the feeling, preparing to fight against an invasion felt but unseen, but it never came. Instead, the drow only went far enough to make her presence known; like a hand brushing against her shoulder, a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she said, “close your eyes, and let me show you what I see.” Shadowheart hesitated, while Halisanna remained waiting at the threshold. Open. Inviting. 

“Don’t worry, darkness,” said the ranger, “it’s not _your_ secrets at risk.” Shadowheart hesitated a moment more, mind alert and body coiled, then relented, curiosity triumphant over tight-fisted secrecy. Fuck it, she thinks, why not? 

The cleric closed her eyes, Halisanna drew her in. She willed herself to relax against the stone wall as some discrete, intimate part of her was enveloped by a shroud at the mercy of another. Or so it felt, as her mind became a cloud, boundaries wisp-like and indistinct, while the rest of her sat still against the bones of the earth. Unnerving, but Shadowheart feels her body relax against the earth as the feeling of being taken into another is never followed by said other forcing its way into her. She can appreciate that much, at the very least.

“Alright, try to see what I’m seeing.” Said the ranger.

“Do you know if this’ll work?”

“Not really, no. But it’s worth a shot, yeah?” The ranger’s words came from the mind, this time.

_I want you to see this._ The mind’s ear didn’t hear that as distinctly as Shadowheart had previously. Did a thought slip by its thinker, perhaps? Or maybe that’s just what Shadowheart wanted to hear. 

She was much too sober to be willing to consider the implications of the latter.

Halisanna opened her eyes and lowered her walls further still - Shadowheart, in turn, poured forth to fill the space created. An image bloomed behind her eyelids from eyes that were not her own.What she saw was the same view of the Underdark she’d admired only a minute or two before, and then some. Halisanna wasn’t lying when she said her sight was excellent; her vision of the Underdark went further, the shadows more pronounced, sublime.

Oh, but it wasn't just that she’s able to see more of the world below, she _knew_ more about it as well - a knowing that suffuses everything she sees. That wordless familiarity between a place and the children it raised; Shadowheart knew the backstreets and hidden nooks of Baldur’s Gate with that kind of intimacy, once.

They fell into a comfortable collaboration of sight. Shadowheart would take an interest in a particular formation of rock and fungus, the curve of an arch half-hidden, the slope of a ridge that hints at something secret just beyond its crest, her wonder at the expanded depths guiding borrowed eyes. Like two dancers; one leading the other in a gentle waltz of mutual delight.

Time was an abstract concept Shadowheart couldn’t care less for. But eventually, inevitably, her heart had her fill of the world through the ranger’s sight. She withdrew from between the Drow’s eyes, and found herself leaning into the Drow’s arms.

“When did this happen?” Said Shadowheart, trying to raise herself up by the elbow, ending up with her forearm pressed into Halisanna’s thigh.

“A few minutes in, I think? I was too busy seeing to really give it much thought.” were this any other occasion, Shadowheart might think she was being glib.

“And you didn’t bother to tell me?”

“I thought you knew. Would you have liked me to?” Shadowheart looked out into the cavern; seeing through her own eyes again, she found herself disappointed by the darkness.

“No.”

“I see,” a pause, Shadowheart felt the ranger shift beneath her, “and would you like to change our current situation?”

“No,” Shadowheart shifts some herself to untangle her drowsy legs from a net of invisible pins, “well, maybe a little.”

“I see!” Halisanna slid out from under Shadowheart - not too difficult a task in and of itself, their position far from stable. Pressing the cleric against the rockface, she swung her legs over Shadowheart’s and took her place upon the other woman’s lap. 

“There, now isn’t this more comfortable?” Shadowheart’s mind reels, wondering if her eyes were trapped in molasses. How did she just do that? How, in Shar’s name, is she so nimble? Regardless…

“I suppose it is, yes.” she wraps an arm around the ranger’s waist, pulling her further into Shadowheart’s form; the delightful press of her weight against the cleric’s own body was positively _electric_.

“I've gotten used to you being shorter.” Halisanna rested her head against Shadowheart’s shoulder and, gods above, the feeling of warm breath caressing her neck set Shadowheart on fire.

“Like looking down at me, do you?”

“It helps that I have a nice view.”

“Only helps? Please, I’m gorgeous!” Shadowheart bites her lip. What is she supposed to say to that? _Yes, beautiful, now let's find a bed I can pin you to._ Please! She’d never, especially not now.

“My, what a face you’re making!” Halisanna is straddling her now, arms slung loosely over the cleric’s shoulders. “What’s on your mind, I wonder? Dare I ask?”

“Oh, just something someone once told me,” Shadowheart cups Halisanna’s right cheek, gingerly tracing the flight path of the ink-born birds. “that if I want something,” her hand is under the Ranger’s chin now, raising it up oh-so-slightly, “I should take it.”

“Well then!” Said the someone in question, “Then what are you waiting for?”


End file.
